CAIRO — The Egyptian market is currently witnessing an unprecedented rise in the price of white sugar, as the price of 1 ton of white sugar reached 16,750 Egyptian pounds ($682) in the past few days. 

In retail stores, the price of a pack (1.1-1.6 pounds) of the popular Al-Doha Sugar increased to 23 Egyptian pounds ($0.94), while the price of lower-quality brands ranged between 18 pounds and 21 pounds ($0.73 and $0.85).

This comes at a time when the Canal Sugar company in Egypt — of which the Dubai-based Al Ghurair Group owns a controlling stake — began operating in May a sugar beet processing facility in Minya governorate (Upper Egypt), which is set to be the largest factory in the world with an expected annual production of more than 900,000 tons of sugar. 

Observers believe that the sugar crisis in Egypt is the result of a lack of supply in the market and a failure to release shipments of raw sugar from the ports due to a shortage of US dollars. This, according to observers, is exacerbated by the global problems in shipping and import resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's war on Ukraine.